Relationship between Students’ Adversity Quotient and their English Performance at a University in Viet Nam

Learning a foreign language (FL) is often characterized by challenges, setbacks, and the need to adapt to new linguistic and cultural contexts. Adversity Quotient (AQ) offers a unique perspective on individuals’ ability to navigate and overcome these obstacles. For these reasons, the study was carried out to measure the AQ, FL competence and investigate the relationship between the AQ and FL competence of students at a university in Vietnam. The participants were recruited from 409 students at a university in Vietnam with different majors and different courses to measure the AQ index, FL competence and the relationship between the AQ index and students’ FL competence. Two instruments were used i.e., the Adversity Response Profile (ARP) 1.0 was developed by Paul G. Stoltz to measure an individual’s AQ and the ASK model (Attitude – Skills – Knowledge) in combination with the results of English subjects to assess students’ competence in using English. SPSS 26 software was used for data analysis. The findings indicated that the students’ AQ index is at a moderately low level; foreign language competence is at a moderately fair level and there is a low positive correlation between the student’s AQ and FL competence.